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TRON: Part 3

Disney began work on a top secret movie, and through a brilliant marketing decision, starts an Augmented Reality Game (ARG) to secretly promote said movie. They called it the “Flynn Lives” movement. To help explain certain going on’s within the TRON universe, Disney spent a year or so secretly setting up web sites, printing flyers and hiring people to bring this world to life to create a sense of connection to the imaginary.

This all lead up to the release of the new official sequel to TRON…

TRON: Legacy.

I remember seeing things for “Flynn Lives” but never clicked on them. It didn’t even connect to Kevin Flynn in my mind. If I knew, if I only knew what was going on, I would have signed up, for free, to plaster Dayton, Ohio in Flynn Lives posters, would have stood out on a street corner with a megaphone spouting Flynn propaganda until I was arrested, and then told the cops at the police station that Flynn is coming back, he is just working on the digital frontier to reshape the human condition! And that he will abide, man!

TRON: Legacy follows the adventure of Kevin Flynn’s son, Sam. Flynn disappeared in 1989 without a trace. Encom was on the verge of bankruptcy and Sam was under the care of his grandparents and Alan Bradley. Speculations flew about why Flynn vanished, and some thought that he may have simply ran away from a company that was facing scrutiny.

Sometime thereafter in 1992 is when, in that universe, the Flynn Lives movement began.

Sam Flynn felt he was never cut out to run a fortune 500 company, and almost completely stepped away from Encom all together. Disliking how his fathers company is being ran, Sam pulls an “annual prank” on the company. In the film, this was pulled off as releasing the companies newest version of its flagship operating system to the net for free access to the world. When confronted by a security guard, Sam states that “You can’t steal something that was meant to be free.” That line was said at the very top of Encom tower. To escape and finish his prank, Sam fell of the tower backwards and parachuted to the ground where he attempted to flee from the police, but was arrested.

Once Sam was released, he went home and found Alan Bradley waiting for him. Alan told Sam that he was paged the night before from Kevin Flynn’s office at the old arcade (from the first movie). He thought Sam should be the one to go and investigate and tossed him the keys to the arcade.

Arriving at the arcade, We find that time has not been good to the once booming business. Switching the power on, Sam goes up to Flynns old office only to find it empty. Returning to the arcade floor, and about ready to give up hope once again, Sam turns and looks a the far back wall. And you know what he finds?

The TRON arcade machine!

Sam walks over to the machine. Smiling, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a quarter and plops it into the game only to have the quarter rejected through the coin return. As Sam reaches down to pick it up, he sees an odd groove in the floor. After a moment, he pulls on the game cabinet to reveal a hidden metal door! Being curious, he opens and walks through the door as the TRON game closes behind him, once again hiding the door.

Sam walks down a stairwell and comes to a large wooden door that looks like it came out of a horror film. The whole hidden stairwell looks like it has been abandoned for 20 years. Opening the large wooden door, Sam finds yet another hidden room. He found his fathers hidden office. Photos of Sam as a young child hand on a bulletin board next to schematics, cryptic printouts labeled “The Grid” hanging over an Encom style computer terminal in front of a laser set up. Curious, Sam sits at the terminal and begins typing in commands to try to find answers. He finds the commands for the laser and clicks “YES” to a question about the aperture targeting area clear.

The next thing Sam knows, his surroundings look significantly cleaner than a moment ago. Hearing a rumbling outside and seeing a spotlight, Sam runs out of the “arcade” and is met with a new world.

Sam Flynn is now in The Grid.

Sam is taken captive for being a stray program without an identity disc. He is chosen to compete on the game grid against other programs in the disc wars arena, where he attempts to make a not so graceful escape, only to be recaptured and revealed to be a User.

All this time, the disc wars game was being watched by a program from a room that was high up from the arenas. At this time, all we see of this program is that his circuit color is orange and he is wearing a helmet. He seems to be someone of great importance. Once Sam is recaptured, he is taken to see this program who now appears to be the one in charge.

Sam asks three simple questions, “Where am I? Am I on The Grid? Who are you?” These questions are answered with one action… The program retracts the helmet to reveal his face…

In shock, Sam can only say one word, “Dad?”

Whoever this is… he looks like Kevin Flynn!

After a moment, Sam realizes that this person is not his father, but is actually his fathers creation, Clu.

Sam is taken to the Lightcycle Grid where he and other programs must combat Clu and his elite Video Warriors (to brig back a phrase from the original TRON). With Sam not doing well, the game is interrupted by another program, who rescues Sam from certain derezolution, named Quorra. Quorra then takes Sam to meet the real Flynn, and together, they thwart Clu’s plans of trying to invade the User world, but everything has a price.

TRON: Legacy, to me, had the same action timing as TRON. Quite a few people whom I’ve asked have also said the same. Visually amazing, I had the honor of seeing the first midnight showing in IMAX 3D with the ENTIRE theater being sold out!

With all my love of TRON: Legacy, their is one thing that I need to take a moment to talk about that I just can’t get past, though it didn’t completely ruin the movie for me…

Their was no inside joke about popcorn.

Now, let me explain. We all remember the scene in TRON where Alan’s group 7 access was suspended at Encom due to Flynn’s hacking attempts. Right before Alan tries to access his TRON program, we see him eating popcorn from a bowl under an air popper. One of Alan’s co-workers named Roy Kleinberg (who we later find out is the hacker nammed ZackAttack who was the brains behind the Flynn Lives movement) asked him if he could have some of his popcorn as Alan was walking past. After Alan said “yeah, sure.” Roy quickly walked to Alan’s cubical to help himself to some popcorn.

TRON 2.0 had a scene similar to this. Jet Bradley was playing a TRON arcade machine when someone approached him and asked, “Hey Jet? Do you think your father would mind if I had some of his popcorn?” After I first saw this scene, I just lost it! I laughed for several minutes at the reference that only die hard fans would appreciate!

On the same day that TRON: Legacy was released, the game TRON: Evolution came out. This was the adventures of a System Monitor program written by Flynn to help TRON police the new Grid. Taking place before Flynn went missing, you get to explore TRON City and work side by side with Clu to safeguard the “perfect system” according to Flynn’s “old” design.

We quickly find out why Flynn had to write a program to help TRON. The Iso leader was derezzed. Thinking it was murder ,Flynn had no choice but to bump up security to help maintain order within The Grid. Shortly after you take your place, a computer virus begins to spread. Needless to say, as a System Monitor, you have your hands full trying to keep programs and Iso’s safe while maintaining order.

The game chronicles everything that lead up to Clu going crazy and committing genocide against the Iso’s in order to create the “perfect system.” And this is how we find out that you were the sympathetic program who helped Quorra escape.

TRON:Evolution if played from beginning to end without dying, would have the same speed and tempo as Legacy. One day, I will be able to do that. Hell, TRON 2.0 is even hard as anything even with all the cheat codes activated!

In 2012, Disney released a cartoon called TRON: Uprising. Taking place between certain parts of TRON: Evolution, the show tells the story of a repair program named Beck. Beck, having a dislike of how Clu was running things, disguised himself as TRON (at this point, everyone thought TRON was killed by Clu) and defaced a statue of Clu. Hearing this, people thought that TRON was still alive, and began a “TRON Lives” movement, just like the Flynn Lives movement!

TRON, being alive but damaged by Clu, tracks down Beck and begins training/re-purposing him to be the next TRON to make the Grid a free system once again.

Shortly after the show’s release, it was canceled by Disney. Their has been many theories as to why it was canceled, especially where the point the story was at. I might touch on some of these theories in another post due to the potential political issues they will bring up.

Their is so much more I could say about TRON. Touching on the short-lived prequel comic series for TRON 2.0, the graphic novel leading up to TRON: Evolution, my complaint that the Disney stores don’t carry anything TRON related… Just so much!

TRON means so much to me. At the time, it teased me as being the ultimate escape from a daily argument-filled house where I used video games as a coping mechanism. It helped me imagine worlds to play in. I honestly can not put my love into words about how much this means to me. It has always been a part of my life, and perhaps, one day, I can share this world with my children to help them see more than our world can offer.